Future Meetings

Scientific discussion meeting organised by Professor Dianne Edwards CBE FRS, Professor Liam Dolan FRS and Dr Paul Kenrick

New discoveries in the fields of developmental and functional biology are shedding light on the origins of land plants. We explore how exceptional fossils from our earliest preserved terrestrial ecosystem – the 400 million year old Rhynie Chert – can be integrated into a neobiological understanding of the evolution of plants and their interactions with other organisms and their environment.

• Read more about The Rhynie Chert – our earliest terrestrial ecosystem revisited

The ISECT 2017 meeting will bring together researchers on all aspects of the palaeontology, geochemistry and stratigraphy of the Ediacaran and Cambrian intervals. The meeting will consist of a two day symposium exploring topics including the placement of the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary.

• Read more about International Symposium on the Ediacaran–Cambrian Transition (ISECT NL2017)

The Geological Society, Burlington House Sedimentology and geomorphology have traditionally been seen as fields in which physical, and sometimes chemical, processes dominate completely. Even in settings where biological processes have long been recognised, for example in marine carbonates, focus has been almost entirely on metazoans. This is curious, because microbial communities since the Pre-Cambrian, have suffused all sedimentary environments on Earth, and at least half global biomass is prokaryotic. Are all these microbes simply bystanders?

• Read more about Lyell Meeting 2017

The 14th International Ichnofabric Workshop will take place in Taipei under the auspices of the Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University and the National Taiwan Museum. We cordially invite oral and poster presentations dealing with all aspects of ichnofabric, ichnology, and sediment organism interaction. The workshop will include an intra-workshop field trip to the NE Coast of Taiwan where uplifted Cenozoic sandstones offer exquisite exposure of the trace fossils and their sedimentary context.

• Read more about International Ichnofabric Workshop

This year's International Workshop on Plant Taphonomy will be held on the last weekend in November in Bonn, from Friday, November 25 to Saturday, November 26, 2016. The date provides terrific opportunities for stimulating discussions over Glühwein at the Bonn Christmas Market, so please mark it on your calendar! The 2016 workshop will feature a keynote lecture from Bob Gastaldo (Colby College, Maine, USA) and a round-table discussion on the taphonomy of leaf cuticle led by Lutz Kunzmann (Senckenberg Research Institute, Dresden, Germany).

• Read more about 25th International Workshop on Plant Taphonomy

It is with the greatest pleasure and honour that we invite you officially to participate in the 9th European Conference on Echinoderms (thereafter ECE) in 2016 in Poland. This will be the first echinoderm meeting in Poland and is titled ”Echinoderms: from ossicles to the big picture”.

• Read more about 9th European Conference on Echinoderms (9ECE)

The Tenth Annual Address of the Palaeontographical Society is to be given by Dr Tim Littlewood of the Natural History Museum on 'The role of fossils in better understanding parasites and parasitism'.

The talk will be held in the Neil Chalmers Seminar Room of the Natural History Museum. It is free to attend and open to all.

The address follows the Society's AGM. Tea and coffee will be served from 3:30 pm onwards with the AGM commencing at 4 pm and the talk at around 4:30pm.

• Read more about 10th Annual Address of The Palaeontographical Society

Join us for an afternoon of talks on the impact of climate change on reptiles, both living and extinct.

Speakers from the UK and USA will be talking about how changing climates affect reptile diversity and distribution and how understanding their past responses to climate change might help us find effective conservation strategies in the future. Speakers include Dr Annette Broderick (University of Exeter), Prof. Patricia Holroyd (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr Richard Pearson (UCL).

• Read more about Climate & cold blood: reptile responses to past and present climate change

The forthcoming 7th IRGC is open to all aspects dealing with living or fossil Charophytes (sensu Charales). The two-day pre-congres excursion goes to the Burabay lake district (modern Charophytes). The post-congres excursion (Sept. 2-5) will climb the Aktau Mountains to collect fossil Charophytes (Oligocene to Quaternary) Symposia of the International Research Group on Charophytes are held at a quadriennial rythm on different continents.

• Read more about 7th International Symposium on Extant and Fossil Charophytes

The next Silicofossil and Palynology Meeting will be held in Florence (Italy) from 15th September to 16th September 2016 and it is entitled "Silicofossil and Palynology Joint Meeting for Advanced Research in Biostratigraphy, Palaeoceanography and Palaeoclimatology". The first day of the conference will be dedicated to silicofossils (radiolarians, diatoms, silicoflagellates, sponges etc.) and the second day to the palynomorphs (pollen, dinoflagellate cysts, spores).

• Read more about The Micropalaeontological Society 5th Silicofossil and Palynology Joint Meeting